The State Department is creating a website to assist Europeans in accessing online content that is restricted by their own governments, according to a report from Reuters. The site, called “freedom.gov,” is intended to circumvent “hate speech” laws and counteract censorship.
A source familiar with the development told the outlet that officials discussed incorporating a virtual private network system to make a user’s traffic appear to originate in the United States.
The website, led by Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, was initially expected to be unveiled during the Munich Security Conference, but faced delays.
A State Department spokesperson told Reuters that the United States does not have a censorship-circumvention program targeting Europe, but sees digital freedom as a priority, and that “includes the proliferation of privacy and censorship-circumvention technologies like VPNs.”
In December, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took action against five individuals who have organized efforts to censor Americans. These individuals and entities have “advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states—in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” he said.
The December action expands upon one from May, when Rubio shared a “new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans,” he said at the time. “Free speech is essential to the American way of life – a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.”
“In some instances, foreign officials have taken flagrant censorship actions against U.S. tech companies and U.S. citizens and residents when they have no authority to do so,” he explained, adding that it is “unacceptable” for foreign officials to threaten U.S. citizens or residents for posts made on American platforms on American soil.
